SPOTLIGHT
The Chinesemarket represents a huge opportunity for Irish businesses, but there areways andmeans of exploring this, according to UCD’s Professor Cathal Brugha,who recently co-authored a book on the subject. He spoke to Grainne Rothery
calling W
ith China set to officially overtake Japan this year as the second biggest global economy behind the United States, and as one of the very few countries in the world currently experi- encing growth – and significant growth at that – the opportunities in this market are enormous,
both for individual Irish businesses and for the country as a whole. According to Professor Cathal Brugha, director of the Centre for Business Analytics in the School of Business, UCD, and a co- author of the recently published Doing Business in China, the Chinese market is of particular importance to the Irish economy at the moment. “We have to grow ourselves out of this recession and out of the
huge costs we’re incurring now,” he says. “We have to save money everywhere, but you can’t save more than a certain amount. So we have to grow out of it and export growth is the only solution.” “China is the leading trading region in the world and we could
benefit so much from just a tiny, tiny fraction of that business,” he continues. “To do what we did with the US in terms of production for the last 50 years we could do with trade for the next 50 years. We could get a slice of that action.” While the Chinese market is both big and open, the Irish in gen-
eral have been slow out of the blocks to take advantage of this, maintains Brugha. “The hunger is really there from the Chinese side, more so than ours. Which I think is stunning, because we’re used to markets where we’re just scraping for a bit and hoping to get it, and competing with loads of others and finding it difficult because we’re being squeezed out. Here it’s the other way around
– Chinese companies are hungry to get opportunities with the West.” Some Irish businesspeople have been very successful in China,
but they tend to be individual entrepreneurs, according to Brugha. “A lot of the people we interviewed for our book were husband and wife operations. They would have seen an opportunity and next thing they’re flying back and forward doing deals; all done in a flash by themselves. It shows that a small number of people who are really marketing-conscious and really willing to work hard and go for it get on brilliantly.” Language barriers and differences in cultures and the way busi-
ness is conducted are clearly issues that must be overcome. And the onus is on the Irish side to rise to these challenges, says Brugha. And, while westerners may have difficulties understanding structures and approaches to business in China, Brugha maintains that Chinese people have greater difficulty understanding the way things are done in the west.
Natural advantage Irish businesspeople who are interested in investigating the Chinese market themselves have some key advantages, he says. However, they must be prepared to invest the time required to build relationships and to understand the different approach to business there. “The Irish get on very well because they’re easygoing and can
adapt to other cultures and styles. That’s really important in China, because the way Chinese people start to do business is totally dif- ferent to the west.
Volume 4 Issue 3 2010 Marketing Age 51
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